‘Everyone’ knew about Epstein, Trump told police chief
A newly unearthed 2019 FBI interview with Donald Trump about Jeffrey Epstein and his crimes reveals he asserted “everyone has known he’s been doing this”.
Source: C-Span
A newly uncovered FBI interview has raised further questions about US President Donald Trump’s assertion he knew nothing about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
Meanwhile, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, faced a barrage of questions from lawmakers on Tuesday (US time) about his own ties to the disgraced, late financier.
The day’s developments underscored how the fallout from the Epstein scandal remains a major political headache for the Trump administration, weeks after the Justice Department released millions of Epstein-related files to comply with a bipartisan bill.
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The files have also created crises abroad after revealing details of Epstein’s ties to prominent people in politics, finance, business and academia.
In July 2006, as Epstein’s first sex crime charges became public, the police chief in Palm Beach, Florida, received a call from Trump, according to the summary of a 2019 FBI interview with the police chief that was among the files.
The police chief, Michael Reiter, said Trump told him: “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this”.
Trump told Reiter that people in New York knew about Epstein and advised him that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s associate, was “evil,” according to the document.
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Trump also said he had once been around Epstein when teenagers were present and that he “got the hell out of there”.
Reiter, who retired in 2009, confirmed the details of the FBI interview to the Miami Herald, which first reported its existence.
Asked about the reported conversation, the Justice Department said, “We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago”.
Trump was friends with Epstein for years, but he maintains they fell out before Epstein’s first arrest.
Trump has repeatedly said he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that Trump had been “honest and transparent” about ending his association with Epstein.
“It was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006,” she said.
“I don’t know the answer to that question.”
Separately on Tuesday, Lutnick sought to distance himself from Epstein while testifying at a Senate hearing, alleging he “barely had anything to do with” him.
The Justice Department files included emails that showed Lutnick appears to have visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island for lunch in 2012, seven years after he claimed to have cut off all ties.
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The revelations have prompted calls from Republicans and Democrats for him to resign.
Lutnick told senators that he met Epstein only three times over 14 years and that the lunch, which included his family, happened simply because he was on a boat near the island.
“I know, and my wife knows, that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard,” Lutnick said at the hearing.
But the emails contradicted Lutnick’s previous statements that he vowed in 2005 never to see Epstein again, after Epstein, his neighbour at the time, showed Lutnick a massage table at his townhouse and made a sexually suggestive comment.
Republican Representative Tom Massie told CNN on Sunday that Lutnick should “make life easier on the President, frankly, and just resign”.
At the White House, Leavitt said on Tuesday that Trump “fully supports” Lutnick.
Congressional Democrats also introduced legislation on Tuesday intended to make it easier for adult victims of sex trafficking to sue their abusers, even many years later.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez announced the bill alongside Epstein victims and Virginia Giuffre’s family.
The proposal – Virginia’s Law – is named after Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers. She married and move to Australia, before taking her own life last year.
Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.
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-with AAP
